More than a year ago, I honestly didn’t know what to think when ASCA finally moved on from notorious grifter John Leonard and hired Steve Roush. Having never been a swimming insider, I didn’t know about Roush from his previous tenure at USA Swimming or as a coach.
Far too late, I’ve realized that I’m sad that Roush has left the post. I’ve been one of ASCA’s biggest critics- mainly because of Leonard, who long since leveraged the American coaching community for personal gain. Still, ASCA continues to play an important role for not only coaches in America but coaches around the world.
Part of what I’ve realized is what an important, and dare I say positive, role ASCA plays in worldwide coaching. For all his other amorality, John Leonard provided consistent leadership on anti-doping, and his grift meant he was always looking for more numbers.
That meant that ASCA brought coaches together from around the world, and that’s quite unique. Ask your local basketball coach whether they have occasion to interact with coaches around the world (maybe they do) but the world of swim coaching is far more interconnected than most.
In my one and only interaction with Roush, I could tell that he was actually quite a different leader for ASCA. With out going into the details, he distinguished himself from Leonard. Where Leonard was not only unwilling to stand up to pedophiles and abusers and often defended and promoted them, Roush would not.
Later I would discover that Roush actually had an intricate knowledge of non-profits and their liability/insurance structures. He was working to reform the tangled mess of fly-by-night practices ASCA had let go for far too long.
Now he’s gone, and that’s sad. Even more sad, he’s been replaced by Bill Wadley, who I mistakenly believed had retired a few years ago. It’s telling that after a brief attempt to change things up, ASCA essentially hired a former board president, someone who undoubtedly oversaw much of Leonard’s malfeasance, to continue that legacy.
In the end it may not matter. Pre-covid I had multiple sources telling me that ASCA would soon run out of money. Leonard’s shameless cash grab of “lifetime membership” had cut off a significant source of long term income, and the inability to host a “World Clinic” in person cut off another.
Reckonings for any longstanding institution are rare. The inability to adapt with the times is only obvious in hindsight, and if I’m wrong then it’s obvious that the reckoning I’ve seen coming for quite sometime never came.